


Blood and Rain

by Askeebe



Series: Never Let Me Go [5]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:25:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4527300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askeebe/pseuds/Askeebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thane swore a promise when he was holding his wife's broken body in his arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Rain

The rain today was particularly hard and intense as he exited the environment dome and headed to the beach. He took slow measured steps, exactly as he had almost three years ago. The path was wide and paved with rough stones that provided traction in the constant rain of Kahje. It was nearly the middle of winter. Cold rain slithered under his coat, soaking his shirt and then wicking down through his pants. In another few minutes he would be completely soaked through, but he didn't care.

He kept pace with his younger self, walking just behind the funeral bier. Kolyat trudged next to him in his memories. Behind them came family and friends. In the heavy rain, his inner eyelids blinked frequently, and each time, the scene shifted between past and present. Blink, and he was surrounded by grieving relatives. Blink, and he was alone on a desolate beach. The only constant was the rain.

He halted in the exact spot he had three years ago with the waves lapping at his boots. Ahead of him and in the past, the hanar attendants floated the bier into the ocean. Mourning sounds like bells tolling lifted into the heavens while beside him a younger Kolyat beat at him with ineffectual fists, yelling at him to make it stop, to bring her back. Tears ran down his face to become indistinguishable from salty rain water.

Lost in the memory of a memory, he saw again the desecrations visited upon his wife's body, saw her torn, bruised, bloody...sliced open, stripped and posed for him to find. He only gave thanks that he was the one who found her and not Kolyat.

The sun was hidden behind heavy, sullen clouds. The world was painted in monochromatic blues and greys with the occasional whitecap on the ocean surface. Nowhere was there a hint of color.

For a moment, he gave in to the dangerous pull of memory.  _A flash of sunset orange as she stared indignantly up at him through his scope. The brilliant yellow sari he breathlessly peeled away from her skin for the first time. The startling blue of his newborn son cradled in her pale orange arms. The swirl of a delicate green skirt as she danced for him in their bedroom when he returned home._

He wanted nothing more in that single moment than to lie down in the sand, give himself over to the memories and let the waves take him.

"Irikah!" he shouted into the wind and fell to his knees.

He couldn't go yet, though. Too much blood stained his hands. For the first time in his life, he had acted of his own volition. No longer simply a living weapon, he had taken the power of death as his own.

"Irikah, it's over. They're dead! Every one of them."

He had been taught to grant death cleanly and swiftly. The deaths he had visited upon those who murdered his wife had been neither. Those memories, too, would stay with him for the rest of his life.

When he had started, his thirst for vengeance couldn't be slaked, no matter how much pain he inflicted. As he worked his way up the chain, it became a matter of principle. He would make them suffer as much or more than what they had been responsible for. He became inured to the tortures he had inflicted. He knew exactly how to prolong life, no matter the suffering. And oh how they suffered.

The batarian at the top, the one who gave the fateful order, he knew that death was coming for him. It had started as a menacing whisper three years ago and grown into a full-throated roar of death and misery. He had tried in vain to hide, but to no avail. His death was the longest and most painful of all. Thane made sure of that.

He looked down at his hands. Blink, and hot, thick blood dripped from them. Blink, and it was cold rain water.

"They're gone, Irikah. I killed them. They won't hurt anyone ever again!"

Irikah was gone. She was forever beyond him except by prayers. Kolyat was safe with her sister. Where did that leave him?

He had usurped Amonkira's power to hunt his prey. He had felt Kalahira's black shadow over him as he sent each of his targets to the sea. Never had he felt so powerful. Never had he felt so alone.

Now here on the edge of Kalahira's domain, he looked again at his hands and accepted her judgment. The blood that stained his hands weighed as heavily as the violence on his soul. He had stolen that to which he had no right, and now he must pay. Kalahira's judgment would send his soul to the depths of the ocean for all eternity. Never would he see his beautiful siha again, in this life or the next.

She had been the one to wake him to the wonders of the world. She had made him appreciate art, music, and religion as more than simply extraneous fripperies. She had opened his eyes to the wider world, and it was so much grander than he had ever imagined. Now she was gone, and the world was empty and bleak once more. The difference was that now he knew what he was missing, and he was crushingly diminished by that knowledge.

The loneliness gnawed at his heart until there was nothing left. There was no more vengeance. There was no more Irikah. There was nothing.

He roared his fury and grief into the storm. He grabbed a handful of rocks and hurled them violently into the waves. How dare they! How dare the gods give him something as precious as her and then take it away in such a manner! Did they not understand who he was? He had no choice! As soon as the scum killed her, they had consigned their deaths to his hand. It was only a matter of time until he tracked them down. No matter that by doing so he would be denied an eternity with Irikah. For all the gentleness she had tried to instill in him, he would forever remain an assassin. With her gone, the colors bled back from the world until only the familiar black and white remained. They had committed a crime against him. They would pay with their lives. It was as simple as that.

"Irikah!" he sobbed as he hunched over in pain so sharp that it threatened to rip him asunder. Three years he had denied himself any grief. Three years he had shoved it away, focusing only on his vengeance. They would pay, he told himself. They would pay in blood and terror. Now the last one was dead, and he was back on Kahje staring into the ocean that had taken his beloved wife. There was no joy, no righteous pride. There was only a pale sense of accomplishment that a difficult task had been accomplished. But for what? His wife was still dead. He hadn't seen his son in three years. The slavers were gone to an unmarked grave, but more would already be filling the void he had created. What was the point?

The pain was all-consuming. He had felt this pain when he cradled her broken and bloodied body in his arms. Then, as now, tears streamed down his face as ragged sobs tore from his throat. He could no longer distinguish past from present. Blink, and she was dead in his arms. Blink, and she was gone forever. He couldn't tell which pain hurt more. Surely death was preferable to this, even if it was as a bodiless spirit doomed to wander the black depths of the ocean.

He should never have listened to Arashu. He never should have tried to seek out that brave siha who stood between him and his target that fateful day. If he had let her go as everyone told him to, his life would have gone on unchanged. She would still be alive today, maybe married to someone else and with many children. Even as he tried to tell himself that, his heart broke anew just at the thought of life without her and the thought of her with another man. She had died because she loved him, and he selfishly couldn't even gather the strength to wish her with another, even if it meant she would continue to live.

He was broken. Yes, the slavers had paid with their lives, but they had accomplished their mission. The deadly assassin they were too afraid to face now hunched gasping on the beach. He was an easy target now, and some part of him wished for the sweet oblivion of death. How could he go on? Remembering his path of vengeance sickened him now. Even though everything about it had felt inevitable at the time, thoughts of the atrocities he had committed made him physically ill. That was not who he was. Irikah had shown him he could be better than that.

He thought of his sweet, innocent Kolyat. Irikah's sister had sent him a holo for his son's twelfth birthday. He had been surrounded by other youngsters, friends and cousins presumably. His son had been smiling and so happy. How could he go back to him now? He was too mired in darkness and death. His reflexes were honed for killing, not embracing. His hands had been covered with blood so very recently. How could he touch his son with that memory still weighing on him? Irikah had been the bond between them. With her gone, life held no joy anymore. How could he inflict that on such a young and happy child?

Even worse, vengeance begat vengeance. What if his killing spree sparked another vendetta against him, this time targeting his precious son? The thought of Kolyat lying in the same lifeless pose as Irikah drew fresh sobs from him. Never, he vowed. Never would he put his son in danger. Kolyat was safe and loved where he was. All Thane could offer him was unending danger and sorrow. That was no life for a child.

He would have to leave Kolyat behind, he realized through a fresh wave of grief. For three years he had barely given him any thought, not daring to break away from his self-appointed task and knowing in his heart that if he wavered for an instant, he would leave the job undone just for a chance to be part of a family again, even if it was broken. But that would have denied justice to Irikah and brought even more danger down on Kolyat.

For three years he had thought no further than this point. He had vowed that when his task was done, he would come back to Kahje and inform his wife's spirit. Never had he considered what he would do after that. He hadn't spoken to Kolyat since the funeral. Once or twice, he'd had a vague thought that he would come back, find a place to live, and they could be a family again. Now, faced with the bleak reality of what he'd done, that dream washed away into the sand. Gone, just like Irikah.

He stayed on the beach for hours, letting the cold rain soak into him until even his great strength was exhausted and his hands ached and trembled. The sun had disappeared, never once showing a hint of itself through the rain and dull cloud cover. The pain slowly bled from his chest, leaving in its wake a horrible emptiness that he knew nothing would ever fill again. The anger and grief were still there, but a comforting numbness was spreading through him.

It was better this way. If the light and joy were gone forever, maybe he could also force away the pain and sorrow. He could easily recall the emptiness he'd cultivated before he met Irikah. That emptiness kept unwanted emotions and attachments at bay and allowed him to focus on nothing more than the mission. Blink, and his target fell quietly to the floor as seen through his scope. Blink, and sunset eyes glared indignantly up at him through the same scope. No. He searched again and found a different memory. He twisted her head abruptly, and the asari fell to his feet. She'd had no clue her death lurked behind her. He could live with that. It wasn't what he had wanted, but his wishes were as insubstantial as the sand castles children tried to build on the sands of Kahje.

He staggered to his feet. Hours of kneeling in the cold sand and rain had cramped his muscles, but he only noted the pain and put it out of his mind. It was the body's reaction to external events, nothing more. Again he reached back for a memory. Blink, and Swims the Jagged Channel was pleased when he reported the successful completion of a mission. Blink, and he was entering a shuttle to leave Kahje for the first time. That was the memory he clung to as he swayed on unsteady feet back toward the steps. There was nothing on Kahje for him anymore, and one final shuttle trip would take him away forever.

He would leave behind the rain, the ocean, and everything that had meant something to him. From now on, he was no longer a husband or father. He had tried to change, but it wasn't meant to be. The gods had decreed his path, and when he had walked away from it, they returned him to it forcefully. He was nothing more than a living weapon available to the highest bidder. All else had been washed away in blood and rain.


End file.
